Metamorphoses Series
by Alix's Bawdy House
Summary: A series of vignettes based around Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. Don't worry, you don't need to have actually read any Ovid. Provision will be made for your stupidity.
1. Niobe

A/N: This series is based around stories from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. This one is an attempt at 'Niobe'. The shortened version of the original story goes something like this: Niobe and her husband had fourteen children, and in a moment of arrogance, Niobe bragged about her seven sons and seven daughters at a ceremony in honour of Leto. She mocked Leto, who only had two children, Apollo, god of prophecy and music, and Artemis, virgin goddess of the wild. Leto did not take the insult lightly, and in retaliation, sent Apollo and Artemis to earth to slaughter all of Niobe's children, which they did.   
  
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Fractured fire.  
  
That is what Narcissa sees. The possibility of something beautiful broken into myriad slivers. Their pure blood scattered haphazardly, glittering on her sons hands.   
  
She likes it when he kills for her. Dutiful. Like a good son should be. Graceful hands tearing, ripping, pulling at freckled flesh, clawing at red hair. Her avenging deity. Raining fire and destruction on sinners, the inferior who imagine themselves superior. Almost biblical. Narcissa thinks her son is Christ.  
  
Narcissa laughs and the sound reflects off Draco's sharp, brittle smile. Molly Weasley's blank, childless gaze does not waver.  
  
Fractured fire.  
  
That is what Narcissa loves. 


	2. Echo and Narcissus

A/N: So, the original story goes something like this: Narcissus was so handsome that everyone loved and desired him, but Narcissus was too proud to offer his love in return. His rejection of Echo turned her from an unhappy nymph into the barest wisp of what she had been. Echo shrivelled up until all that was left of her was her voice (which is where we get the word 'Echo' from). If it makes you feel any better, Narcissus does eventually get his comeuppance but not, unfortunately, in this particular story.  
  
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Ginny Weasley has no will of her own.   
  
~Flashes of green on glass, glinting like sunlight on water~  
  
She can't have. Surely she wouldn't be this obsessed if she had a choice.  
  
~Hair a dark, twisting, not-black~  
  
She sees his face in her dreams, in her mirror, in her *food*.  
  
~Smooth play of muscles under skin~  
  
It's a spell. No one could be that *necessary* to her otherwise.  
  
~Capillaries bursting in flushes of light~  
  
She doesn't eat any more. There's no point. All she needs is him. She would devour him if it didn't mean he'd be gone after. Maybe even then.  
  
~Delectable mouth working, hungry~  
  
But he doesn't, *won't*, look at her. He sees her, but he doesn't *look* at her.  
  
~Suave flight of night-on-light above, above them all~  
  
Ginny is fading. Ghostly, she wanders the halls, waiting for him to notice her.  
  
~Jagged scar dissecting his features: angular, hard. Just a hint of the person beneath~  
  
Students avoid the charms corridor. It's haunted. Words warp there. Sighs, moans, forgotten dreams.  
  
  
  
~Harry~ 


	3. Byblis

A/N: This series is based around stories from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. This one is an attempt at 'Byblis'. I couldn't find a decent summary of the original, so this is my (wildly shortened) version: Byblis realises that she's in love with her twin brother. When she tells him, he is repulsed and, to make a long story short, runs away. Byblis fades away without him, and becomes a well of tears, believe it or not. -fin-  
  
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Fred is George and George is Fred. This has been their mantra since forever. Brothers, twins, inseparable. Flaming hair reflects flaming hair, freckled skin matching freckled skin.  
  
Fred has been in love with George for as long as he can remember.  
  
George's face reflects only blankness as Fred scorches the air with his words. Fred can only watch as his body tears itself in two, as half his soul ascends, alone.  
  
Fred is Fred and George is George.  
  
Not so similar after all. 


	4. Phaethon

A/N: This series is based around stories from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. This one is an attempt at 'Phaethon'. The original story goes something like this: Phaethon, son of Clymene and (she claimed) the Sun, was taunted as a bastard by his friends, and so journeys eastward to the palace of the Sun, wanting proof of his parentage. The Sun gladly recognises his son and promises anything to prove his fatherhood. Phaethon asks to drive the chariot of the Sun across the sky and will not be dissuaded. Granted his wish, Phaethon cannot control the team and scorches heaven and earth before finally being blasted out of the sky by Jupiter.   
  
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Lucius remembers the day Draco came home, indignant, angry. Remembers his shrill voice demanding proof of his colourless heritage. Can still hear his own voice intoning the killing words. Draco's face lights up, and his father remembers what light is.  
  
Lucius remembers the day Draco came home, terrified, shivering. Remembers the tiny words that bubbled forth in a spasm of tarnished green shock, can see the imitation adults scattered unmoving, feels the pride crumble into diamond purpose.  
  
Lucius remembers. 


	5. Ocyrhoe

A/N: Presumably anyone who's got this far now knows that this is "a series of vignettes based around Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'", so I'll leave that bit out. Oh. Damn. Anyway, this one's based around the story of Ocyrhoe, a woman who could see the future but was changed into a mare for revealing too many secrets and knowing too much.   
  
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Gifted, her teachers called her. Special. She believed them then.  
  
Deluded, foolish, *lying*, are all the words they have for her now.  
  
Spider web threads of the future shuttling, warp and weft intertwined.  
  
It hurts. She had not foreseen that. As the power to untangle the ravelled knot of the not-now is wrenched from her, she glimpses the silvered, shining thread that is herself. And Sibyll Trelawney breaks, the weight of forbidden knowledge forcing her open.  
  
Foolish, deluded, *lying*. 


End file.
